Just to be a little different, I'm about to start pulling stuff off shelves. We've spent the last couple of days painting and doing general fix-up stuff for our house. We've been planning on getting a different house for a while, but now that I know my job is stable (for a while, anyway), we've decided to get the house ready to sell. We likely won't list it until we buy a new one (or build, we've given ourselves a short period of time to find a house we like, otherwise we need to build).

As such, I'm about to start the packing up process. My wife thinks that a room dedicated to star wars toys is not really going to be a huge selling point. She also suggested that having stuff I don't want stolen sitting out on shelves is probably not a good idea (hello blue snaggletooth). I am rather inclined to agree with her, so instead of opening more stuff up to display, it's getting put away.

Most of my material is in tupperware tubs and there are more of those than she is aware of I'm thinking this stuff will also make the same journey to plastic bins of hell, but I'm not sure some of it should be there. So I'm kind of looking for suggestions from folks as to what should be done. The vintage collection is what I am most worried about. I have piles of loose figures in ziplock bags already stored in tubs, so the modern stuff will suffer the same fate. But is that good enough for vinty stuff? I'm not inclined to bubble wrap 100+ figures, but maybe I should?

Unleashed will turn into a huge pain in the ass I believe. They're great loose, but how do you move those things in a huge group? The rest of the stuff isn't so bad, but all of a sudden I have way too much stuff

Anyone ever packed up and moved an entire collection before? Love to hear some suggestions. Please.

When I moved out of my last house and into my current apartment, I just put every loose figure into it's own plastic bag, and then laid them as flat as possible inside those large rubbermaid tubs. I would say as long as they are all individually wrapped, you should be safe. The biggest concern there would be having the figures rubbing together and having the paint peel off. How long are you expecting to have them packed up like this? Where will they be stored (temperature wise)? The only other thing you might want to think about would be getting a tackle box, or something similar, and holding all the weapons and accessories serperately from the figures, just to prevent any kind of warping and bending. Even though I wrapped mine up and placed them as flat as possible, I still ended up with several sabers, staffs, and rifles that were bent where they weren't supposed to be. It wasn't that bad, but if I had to do it all over again, I would definitely store the weapons seperately. Which can be a big pain in the ass in and of itself, just trying to remember who gets which gun

I would say maybe use the bubble wrap on the more "expensive" loose vintage you've got (Blue Snag, POTF line, etc.) but I would think the bag and flat trick should be fine, depending again on how long you plan on leaving them stored this way.

Of course, you could "custom card" all of your loose vintage and then store them like your carded collection, which would prevent them from rubbing against each other and keep the weapons with the correct figures. I'm sure you can find a website that can help you out with that process

As for the Unleashed line, I would say similar tactics probably won't work. Suggestion? Some of the figures can be broken down, at least a little (at least some of the earlier ones could. Don't think the newer ones can at all.) - so I would take apart as many as possible. The only way I can think of to store these so that the weapons and accessories and other appendages that are flailing won't warp or bend would be to get some cardboard boxes (or rubbermaid tubs), place a few of the unleashed figures in the bottom, and then fill them with packing peanuts. You could then put a few more in upside down at the top of the box (or tub), so that the flat bottom of the base would be against the top of the box (or the lid if you go with the tubs). Should keep them stable enough not to bend and warp, again factoring in the weather factor.

I had the fun experience of packing up everything last spring when we moved across the state, and I had a lot of the same questions. While I know I don't have nearly the collection that you do Brent (nor the more valuable pieces like Blue Snag), I was trying to be as careful as possible with each figure as well. I'll basically echo what others have said. Basically, each figure got its own ziplock bag, and they were laid side by side. The vintage figures that I have were actually packed up this way, and then put in their own seperate box (a Nike shoe box I think), and then put into a rubbermaid as well. Some of the older POTF2 figures (that I don't really even display anymore) got put in plastic bags, and then stored in the back of my loose POTF2 Falcon. You can hold quite a few in there when stacked up flat, and it was a space saver for me. Again, I didn't have as much to move as you most likely do. After being in the ziplock bags, I also put paper towels between things to help avoid rubbing and/or smashing. The vehicles I broke down as much as possible, removing wings/guns when I could. Those then got wrapped in paper towels or some sort of padding, unless I happened to still have the box to it. I used quite a bit of Wal-Mart/Target bags to cushion between things, along with paper towels and things like that. Everything made the trip just fine, so it seemed to work.

The Unleashed were the biggest pain to pack/ship. I too enjoy them loose, but they also aren't he most compact things in the world to move. Like Dave mentioned, I broke them down as far as they could be, and always took out the weapons (particularly sabers) when I could. Those got packed in a seperate bag/box. The loose figures themselves don't lend themselves to packing well, but we didn't have the space to have them each in individual boxes, so they went in rubbermaids as well. I wrapped each "piece" of them individually in paper towels, using some scotch tape to hold it on around certain areas, then wrapped each of those in Wal-Mart/Target sacks, then I strategically placed them in the rubbermaids, with lots o' padding inbetween and around them.

The little boxed stuff I had was fairly easy. Although more space consuming, you can basically just stack it and be done with it. But, then again, I can't give any advice on that because I really have very little that is still in the boxes, and what I do was fairly easy to pack up. I'd definitely say be the most careful with the Unleashed and valuable stuff. I can see why you are packing it up, I did the same thing when we started showing our house. Having all the shelves up/stuff out definitely makes a room look smaller and I didn't want to worry about missing anything either. I also, like bobafett14 mentioned, labeled my "Star Wars tubs" so I knew to be careful with them, and to have them traveling in a safe place. Best of luck with the packing, moving, house hunting, and house selling though, I hope you guys find exactly what you are looking for.

Moved in April. Luckily, most of my stuff was still boxed from when we moved from one apartment to another approximately 4 years ago. I did buy Rubbermaid tubs for my loose figs and moved the ones boxed up in paper ream boxes to them. All loose figures were individually Ziplock and placed in Rubbermaid. I think I have five of the 12" deep ones filled.

I saved all the boxes from the vehicles knowing I wouldn't be in an apartment forever. Broke them down, put them back in their respective boxes and taped them back up.

The Unleashed were a little tough. I broke them down, all the little accessories got put in baggies and just put them in a box as best I could. I think I did ok with it. Marvel Legends were down the same way.

Lego was taken apart and put in Ziploc baggies and then put back into their boxes. The only one I didn't take apart was the UCS Yoda. Wrapped him up real good in plastic wrap and then stuck him in a paper ream box filled with packing peanuts. Nice and snug in there and he should be ready to go when I unpack him, which should be soon. Basement is almost done

Thanks for the help here folks, I appreciate the suggestions. It would seem, as I suspected, that the darn Unleashed figures will be the biggest issue.

I think I'll also be using this thread to either chronicle the move, or as it seems ever more likely, chronicle the building of our new home. We've looked at tons of places over the past six months, while waiting to hear about the reorganization at work and haven't been impressed by too much. The area of town we want to live in is the hottest part of the city (naturally) though we prefer it more for the geography than for any other factor. It would drop off 20 minutes from my commute, each way, so putting back a considerable part of my day. Most of that part of the city is pretty full with homes, so few building lots to be found. As such, we may move a little further east, reducing the amount of time taken off my commute.

The market here is both terrible and great. Houses sell very quickly and currently at prices above what they are worth. We viewed a house Friday night. Nice, big house - about 2100 sq ft not including basement - but so much work to do Needed carpets, paint and the basement was finished, but so disjointed we'd need to gut it before refinishing it, essentially too much work. Pity too, it was nicely laid out, had a pretty big yard (this is one of the sucky parts about the lots around here, they are almost universally too small - our current home has a lot that is 60x120 ft and that is considered big) with ample room to put in a pool.

In the efforts towards getting ready to sell our own home (something we'll do only after we've purchases a new one or are done building) we did a pile of work in the last week. We repainted (ok, I tape then watch the kid while the wife paints after watching the kid while I taped) the dining room, living room, front foyer, upper stairwell, downstairs bathroom. We'd repainted my daughter's room, the master bedroom, the family room and the kitchen all within the last year. We fixed our Jenn-air that had a broken breaker causing only one element to light. We re-did the floor in the bathroom off our daughter's bedroom so of course we had to pull up the toilet and then reseat it, quite a neat thing and not nearly so difficult as one would expect. Also put in a new shower head height adjustment arm. We replaced some wiring in the basement, installed a new hood fan in the kitchen (where we also did the floor this past summer). Put in two new light fixtures in the basement and one in the sunroom off the master bedroom.

After all that, packing star wars toys seems pretty easy. If anyone has advice on building (other than "don't", which seems to be fairly consistent) feel free to chime in.

Thought I should add some pics, since this photobucket stuff is pretty easy. Now, if only I could work on my picture taking skills

Vintage stuff

And the other half of vinty...

The great wall of crap...

Those damn Riddell things...

The only cardboard stuff I have out....

Marvel Legends, at least what fits on top of the shelving unit, lots missing

Finally, a small idea of what else I have lying around. I have something like 13 of the large tubs you see in the lower left corner right now, so there's a fair bit of crap not out. Also all the busts are boxed up pretty much. For scale reference, the TV is a 32" Panasonic.

He's one of 'dem carded snobs, Jess. But he's got lots of other crap too, from various other toy lines. Far too many, if you asked me. I've told Brent he way overextends his collecting, and needs to narrow it down to just a nice, easy SW focus, and that's it. Foolish old man won't listen to me though.

Plus, he's probably got a whole storage bin full of those freaking retarded Canadian cereal SW Rubiks Cube head thing-a-ma-bobs that he uses to piss a lot of us off with...

well you sure do have the enormous amount of stuff to pack away. i remember when i moved last year, i had begun to pack things up about 4 months in advance and there still was always something i forgot to box up. but you're going about it the smart way and getitng those huge rubbermaid tubs to toss all the modern junk in. good luck!